And now he’s going to float a 150-tonne sculpture on a lake on London.

Is it an allegory of the west’s oil dependency, an indictment of how we’re polluting the planet, or both? Christo shakes his locks and smiles. “I have no reason to justify myself as an artist. I cannot explain my art. Everything I do professionally is irrational and useless.” This, he thinks, is exactly as it should be. “I make things that have no function – except maybe to make pleasure.”
— The Guardian

Artist Christo chats about his new Mastaba sculpture coming to London this summer: a giant trapezoidal prism of 7,506 stacked steel barrels to float on the Serpentine Lake. It will be his first large artwork in Britain. Christo, The Mastaba (Project for London, Hyde Park, Serpentine Lake), Collage... View full entry

Using some of the same design techniques used for responsive air chambers in submarines, Carlo Ratti Associati has designed a floating plaza/mixed retail center that will float on and adapt to the water level depending on how many people are currently walking on it. The plaza, which is linked to... View full entry

Bjarke Ingels has found the elusive silver lining in global sea level rise and the European affordable housing crisis in the form of "Urban Rigger," a series of inexpensive student housing complexes that are designed to float in the sea, especially in those cities which have dense urban cores next... View full entry

We all want our cities to be greener, but it is often quite hard to grow trees in a concrete environment. So, why not turn to waterfronts or lakes to place trees? Rotterdam will get its first ‘bobbing forest’ in 2016: a collection of twenty trees that are floating in the Rijnhaven, a downtown harbor basin. [...]

After experimenting with a sample tree last year, an entire floating forest of twenty trees is scheduled to be ‘planted’ on March 16, 2016.
— popupcity.net

Related Archinect news:It's official: trees are good for your healthRotterdam considers paving its roads with recycled plasticFollow the yellow wooden road into Rotterdam's new Luchtsingel pedestrian park View full entry

For months, three architects would meet at the waterfront of Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city. [...] Eventually it came to them – if you really wanted to bring people in Izmir together, transform the waterfront. But the very idea was daunting: Turkey’s bureaucracy is infamous, and a large-scale project to redevelop the waterfront seemed impossible.

So the friends [...] built eight floating docks out of plywood.
— theguardian.com

On a regular office workday when the weather is fair, it can be hard to resist stepping outside to take a quick breather. The designers of Zalewski Architecture Group from Gliwice, Poland found themselves in a similar mindset as they looked out onto the dreary courtyard outside from their... View full entry

In a quiet, shady street in Rijswijk, the Netherlands, Koen Olthuis and the design team at Waterstudio are changing the world. From this deceptively nondescript headquarters, Waterstudio is designing the cities of the future. If Olthuis has his way, they will be safer, more flexible and more resilient than current cities. How will he do this? Olthuis is designing floating cities.
— nextcity.org

If you happen to be in Antwerp, Belgium this summer, make sure to check out "Badboot" [...], the world's largest floating open-air swimming pool, which opened this week. At an overall length of 120 meters (394 feet), the lido is capable of receiving up to 600 people at two event halls, a swimming pool and a restaurant with a lounge terrace, which are all open to the public.
— bustler.net

One of the world’s biggest floating openair swimming pools will open on the Eilandje in Antwerp, Belgium at the Kattendijkdok in mid-August. The pool, with a total length of 120 meters (394 feet), can accommodate 600 people and consists of a swim basin, two event venues, several floors and a restaurant with a lounge terrace.
— bustler.net

'Badboot' was designed by architect Pieter Peerlings and Silvia Mertens of Sculp(IT) Architecten, known for the narrowest house in Antwerp (remember this incredibly popular Archinect Showcase Feature?). View full entry

Five winners have just been announced at the 2011 edition of DawnTown Miami. The annual architecture ideas competition seeks to bring creative, innovative, and inspiring new solutions to Downtown Miami and to the City of Miami at large.
— bustler.net

Now in its fourth year, DawnTown partnered with a local historic preservation group to help bring prominence to an early piece of Miami's modern architecture period. The competition invited designers to envision a complimenting structure to the Miami Marine Stadium, aiming to make it a great event... View full entry

Inspired by artificial structures for marine environments, Burt developed a conceptual array of Olympic facilities, including a stadium, that could be transported along waterways and moored in major port cities.
— news.discovery.com

Michael Burt, professor emeritus of architecture at Technion Israel Institute of Technology, has developed a proposal for a re-usable, floating venue to host Olympics events. View full entry